Long Before it Begins
by Masquerading as Quality
Summary: After Hawke is crowned the Champion of Kirkwall, Gamlen strong-arms her into throwing a party. This tragic event's only saving grace is a visit from Merrill. [Female Hawke/Merrill, pre-relationship angsty fluff.]


**A/N:** I am currently obsessed with Dragon Age 2, several years too late, sorry not sorry. I love Merrill to death, but her romance in game just didn't quite work for me—a lot of it felt way too sudden, and I like to wallow in will-they-won't-they forever. SO here is this silly thing.

* * *

Truthfully she still felt a bit like she'd been torn in half, though of course she'd bleed out before she admitted it to anyone. Nothing like dangling in midair with a fucking axe through your entrails to take you out of commission for the foreseeable future. Thank the Maker Kirkwall had been almost unnervingly quiet since then, though more likely that was due to some careful work by her friends.

Normally Hawke loved a good party, but this one was a little on the stale and stilted side. Gamlen wanted it because he thought Mother would have liked it, which was already a recipe for disaster. No one was crying outright, but they were mostly standing around gazing dismally at one another and talking about everything bad that had happened recently. As if any of them needed the reminder.

She'd insisted that her friends be invited—to Gamlen's great protest, of all the insufferable things!—but most of them were the worse for wear themselves, still healing from patched-together injuries they'd taken in stride in the last desperate efforts to save Hawke's mother, and then to end the Qunari threat. Hawke was many things, but she was a shit healer, and both Merrill and Anders' methods were unconventional, to say the least. Everyone could do with a good, long rest.

Aveline had dropped by, of course, to pay her respects, but she'd excused herself fairly quickly. Fenris, too, but he had only stopped by to pay his respects to Hawke, not to Gamlen or his strange assortment of guests, and with little care for social propriety, he had made his leave even more rapidly. Varric had promised to stop by later with more ale, but she knew he wasn't faring too well after one of their most recent adventures, and she didn't expect to see Anders at all. And now Hawke's spirits raised, for there was Merrill, weaving her way through the dismal crowd, wringing her hands together and glancing around nervously.

"Merrill!" Hawke waved. Very uncharacteristic of her, she'd perched herself at a table off to the side where people mostly failed to notice her—more characteristic, her position was strategically next to a towering pitcher of ale, cold and dark and bitter and strong.

"Hawke," Merrill breathed, like a sigh of relief. "I found you. I was worried I wouldn't be able to find you, and I'd feel terribly awkward wandering around in your house if I couldn't find you, and with all these people, I—hello. How are you feeling?'

"I've had better days," Hawke shrugged. Her shoulder twinged and she did her best to hide her wince.

"I should hope so." Merrill knew the true extent of Hawke's injuries, as did Anders. Hawke had been informed that her miraculous survival had taken the two of them working together and tirelessly through the next couple of nights. Varric was already busy spinning the story into some great tale of heroism and fanfare, but the truth was that she hardly remembered the battle, had no idea she'd won until she'd awoken two days later. Her last memories were blurry and dark, and all she could see for certain was blood—blood on her abdomen, blood on the floor, blood on her hands...

It seemed to her an empty victory, but the people of Kirkwall disagreed mightily.

"Better now that you're here, though," Hawke added in a feeble attempt at brightness. She gestured to her empty table. "Won't you join me?"

Merrill smiled and sat. "Why are you sitting alone?" She eyed the ale Hawke proffered with considerable suspicion, but accepted it nonetheless. "Isn't this party supposed to be for you?" She tilted her head, "Champion of Kirkwall?"

A hard huff of mirthless laughter escaped from Hawke's lungs, and she took a long drink of her own ale by way of response. She gleaned a small, but infinitely necessary tingle of satisfaction from slamming her mug down on the table, attracting sidelong glances from the partygoers. "Don't remind me. And _please_. If I hear those words one more time tonight you'll be shoving my guts back into my body again, and what kind of a host would I be then?"

Merrill responded with the laugh she'd developed specifically to mean _Maker-I-hope-that's-a-joke_ , or whatever her Elven Pantheon epithet du jour was.

"This..." she gestured to the roomful of people she barely knew, eyeing her like the pariah she'd still be if she hadn't just saved their asses. "This is for my uncle. And I hope he's enjoying himself, though I can't imagine how. Someday, when everyone's feeling a little further from death's door, we'll have a proper celebration."

"Of your new title?" Merrill wondered.

Hawke scrunched up her nose. "Of...you know, not dying." She chased that thought down with another hearty swig.

Merrill traced invisible patterns on the side of her mug for a moment in silence, then ventured, "Are you...how..." she shook her head. "How are you really doing, Hawke?"

Hawke bit the inside of her cheek, more than a little irritated at having been asked to legitimately contemplate the miserable state of her existence. "Better when I can ignore it all," she snapped, but couldn't latch onto any real anger for the life of her. Merrill, for all her pain and isolation and reaching into dark corners everyone wished she'd leave alone, retained an infinitely gentle heart. Hawke knew she meant only the best.

"Sorry," she sighed, and averted her eyes. "Not great, I guess. But it'll pass, eventually." She felt her brow furrow. "Everything does."

Merrill touched her hand, feather-light, and Hawke wondered at the sensation. Though her heart felt suddenly impossibly heavy, she felt a smile tugging at the corners of her lips, and she willed herself to meet Merrill's wide, searching eyes.

What she saw there was a troubled hopefulness, a gentle knitting of the eyebrows that posed a thousand silent questions. She interpreted it as Merrill's usual state of being, and glanced around the room with a wry grin. "Shit party, don't you think?" she said, then stood (too abruptly, _gentle, damn it, you almost died last week_ ), squeezed Merrill's hand, then let it go and made her way over to the minstrel Gamlen had found Maker-knew-where.

The minstrel, a woman likely around Hawke's age, was so cowed or terrified or awed or whatever by Hawke's appearance before her that she fumbled with and nearly dropped her lute, and the tragic tune she'd been wailing before sputtered to a halt at long last.

"Sorry to bother you, but do you know anything a bit more up-tempo?"

The minstrel stammered a few meaningless syllables.

"I'm in the mood to dance," Hawke offered with her most winning smile.

"O-of course, Messere!" said the minstrel, and flipped haphazardly through a little book sitting at her side.

"My sincerest thanks," said Hawke, accompanied by a bow. She tipped the minstrel well before she returned to where Merrill sat, puzzled and hopeful and searching as always.

The minstrel took up a brighter tune, and Merrill's eyes lit up. "Ooh, you had her change the music!" she cried. "I've always wanted to learn to play! Don't you think I'd make a good bard?"

Hawke laughed at the thought. It hurt a bit, to really laugh, but it was one of those things Hawke had long ago decided were well worth any pain that might come with them. "You might lack something in, uh...cold, conniving aloofness," she said. "But you've got the wringing-sympathy-out-of-your-victims bit down, for sure."

"Not sure I'd like to wield a bow, though," said Merrill with a frown. "Or daggers. Hardly even fought with magic before I started following you."

Wide eyes on her again, hopeful, searching, questioning. Hawke found quite suddenly that she had a lump in her throat and had to swallow hard to rid herself of it. Strange.

"Merrill?"

"Hawke?"

"Do you fancy a dance?"

"With...you?"

Hawke raised her eyebrows. "No, I was thinking of pawning you off on a stranger."

A moment's stillness, then understanding, followed by the _I-hope-that-was-a-joke_ laugh, then a new kind of smile, shy and sweet, but not quite as nervous as usual. "Yes.' Merrill nodded slowly, and her smile grew. "Yes, I'd like that very much."

Hawke took Merrill's hands and pulled her into the center of the room. She definitely heard at least three iterations of well, I never!, which only served to heighten her enjoyment. There was nothing Hawke enjoyed like putting on a show, and she hadn't done that in, what, eight or nine days?

She wrapped an arm about Merrill's waist and led her in an old, half-remembered dance from her childhood, back before everything was so sad and complicated all the time. She hadn't even really been certain she'd remember it until she did, and then she _really_ did, in flashes of her mother and father and sister and brother all hopping around together in their tiny house in Lothering. Momentarily unaware of the hunger rumbling in their bellies, oblivious to the threat of Templars not a stone's throw away from their doorstep on any given day, they danced together like none of it mattered, because their parents always assured them that none of that did matter, that the only thing that was important was that they were happy and together.

Merrill began to catch onto Hawke's haphazard steps, and something about her entire demeanour relaxed just a little bit more. Her grip on Hawke's shoulder tightened, and Hawke felt her stomach flip unhelpfully.

 _I'll be with Carver and Bethany, and your father...but you? You'll be all alone_.

The song came to an end, too soon, and Hawke led Merrill into a dramatic twirl. A few of Gamlen's other guests murmured their disapproval, but a small handful applauded. Then, someone cried, "Another, another!" and another someone seconded, "Yes, another!" And when the poor minstrel at last located what must be her second of only two upbeat songs, the center of Hawke's foyer became a dance floor at last.

Hawke looked around at Gamlen's guests, mostly people she didn't know, but many who knew her, and who knew and liked her mother. She looked back down at Merrill, who was also observing the rest of the party, still smiling and flushed from the exertion.

Perhaps she had felt the crushing weight of that aloneness earlier, even despite her friends' brief appearances and a heartfelt promise of later festivities. At the moment she'd still been trapped in some needless social nonsense that meant little when her mother was already gone and she was barely in one piece and these people were one giant Qunari of separation away from looking down their noses upon her as they'd done for the four years she'd been here.

But now, in this particular moment, she felt decidedly less alone. And that was something, anyway.

"Care to go again, my lady?" said Hawke.

Merrill positively beamed up at her, and Hawke found herself utterly captivated.

They twirled about the foyer with abandon, sometimes hand in hand, sometimes almost cheek to cheek. Merrill was a fair bit smaller than Hawke, and it was as nothing to wrap an arm about her waist and lift her right off the floor as they spun, both of them practically giddy. (Hawke blissfully ignored the occasional twinge in her lower abdomen—truthfully, she hardly noticed it.) When the minstrel had truly exhausted her entire repertoire of happy songs (and Hawke was mistaken—there were as many as five!), the guests began to disperse. Gamlen muttered something moderately affirmative in her general direction, patted her shoulder, and made his leave, as well.

"I suppose I should be going, too," said Merrill with her eyes a bit regretfully upon the front door. "It's getting late, and Varric made me promise to stop wandering the streets at night."

There was that heaviness again, tugging down on her heart, and the aches and pains she'd been cheerfully ignoring came seeping back into her muscles like a poison. 'You could stay awhile if you like. Varric said he'd stop by later. You can always count on him for a late night card game."

Merrill looked up at her, unbridled happiness replaced by the usual hesitancy. "No, I...that's very kind of you to offer, of course, but I should go. We all need our rest, after all." She patted Hawke's arm and headed for the corner where she'd perched her staff.

Hawke followed her to the door, feeling more than a little off-balance. "Thank you for coming, Merrill," she said quietly. "It...meant a lot to me." Insufficient. Horribly so. But it was all she had.

Merrill turned on her suddenly, eyes now full of something else entirely—something dark and new and exciting and frightening. Were Hawke a different sort of person, she might have taken a step backward.

"I've been thinking a lot lately," said Merrill, voice tremulous, but so crystal clear it almost hurt. "About my clan. The mirror. What you've done for me..." she shook her head. There were tears shining in the corners of her eyes. "The trouble I'm likely to cause you yet," she continued. "I've been wondering if it was all a terrible mistake. But you..."

She looked down, clasped her hands together tightly, then looked up at Hawke again. "If I'd never left my people, I'd never have known you. You're...beautiful, and so clever, and strong, and you never make any mistakes... I know I don't deserve you."

She spoke the words with such conviction, they almost broke Hawke's heart. "That's not true at all, Merrill. None of that is true."

Merrill shook her head gravely. "It's true. It is. But I want you to know that following you has been the best thing I've ever done." She smiled a little, sadly. "Might be the only good thing I ever do, but...that remains to be seen. Anyway, I'd best be going and stop babbling now before I make an utter fool of myself, not that I haven't already." She placed her hands gently on Hawke's arms. "Maybe you're feeling a little lonely these days, too. Even with all these people around singing your praises, I don't know. But...I'm...on your side, anyway," she finished with a nod, then turned to depart. "Good night, Hawke," she said over her shoulder, the faintest ghost of that shy, sweet smile from earlier upon her lips.

"Good night, Merrill," Hawke said quietly. She stood dumbfounded, staring at her front door for a solid minute, then returned with a steely resolution to her previous task of drinking her feelings.

Varric found her there what felt like an eternity later, but couldn't have been more than half an hour.

"Aw, shucks, I missed the party," he began flatly.

Hawke offered him a tired smile. "And I'm furious with you, by the way. It was a nightmare all by myself."

This caught Varric's attention. "Don't tell me no one else dropped by?"

Hawke poured him a mug and gestured that he should sit. "Only pulling your chain a bit. Aveline and Fenris dropped by, and Merrill saved me from wallowing whilst I anxiously awaited your arrival."

Varric laughed and took a hearty swig, followed by an appreciative cough. "Dark and bitter. Interesting choice."

"Just like my soul," Hawke countered cheekily, raising her own mug in his direction.

"So Daisy, huh?" Spoken with an inflection that indicated he felt there was a story there.

Hawke groaned instinctively. "Please, no reporters!"

"Come on," Varric wheedled, obviously only emboldened by her protestations. "There's gotta be a great celebration after our hero is crowned Champion of—"

Hawke threw her shoe at him, but he caught it easily. "—Kirkwall," he finished, triumphant.

Hawke chuckled and shook her head. "I don't feel much like your fabled hero these days, Varric. Anyway, the party was stupid. Everyone standing around complaining about how shitty the world is. Gamlen found this tragic minstrel who sang like she was in the process of dying."

"But...?"

Hawke heaved a sigh and cast her eyes upon the ceiling. "But then, Merrill came and we talked and I felt like dancing. So I persuaded the merry minstrel with my stunning good looks and outlandish charms to play something a bit less dirge-y, and we danced."

"WHAT?"

In spite of herself, Hawke couldn't help but grin. She took a leisurely drink in order to savour Varric's reaction. This must be why everyone he met told him all the gossip he could stand to hear.

"You danced with Daisy?" Varric repeated her admission, clearly delighted. "Well, shit, Hawke! Why'd you have to string me along like that? That'll make a great scene. Tell me—did you sweep her off her feet? Did the crowd cheer? Did they boo?"

"I've only got one shoe left..."

"Are you going to fall into bed together and confess your undying love?'

"Maker's _BALLS_ , Varric."

"Your readers need to know!"

Hawke buried her face in her hands, but she was laughing so hard it hurt. It hurt the barely-healed wound in her abdomen, and it hurt some dark corner of her heart she dared not examine too closely. But regardless, she knew she'd file this evening away in that ever-growing list of things that were well worth the suffering they might bring.


End file.
